Sheut
/ʃuːt/noun
In ancient Egyptian religion, the sheut was a person’s shadow, regarded as an important component of the self.
Did you know?Egyptian tomb imagery sometimes depicted the shadow as an independent human-like presence, reflecting the belief that it was more than a mere absence of light.
Etymological Timeline
Old Egyptian, 3rd millennium BCE
Egyptian
šwt
“Shadow; a shadow as an aspect of a person”
Middle Egyptian, c. 2000–1650 BCE
Egyptian
šwt
“Shadow, associated with the individual and represented among the components of the self”
New Kingdom, c. 1550–1070 BCE
Egyptian
šwt
“Shadow, depicted in funerary and religious contexts”
19th–20th Century
Egyptology
sheut
“Anglicized scholarly transliteration of Egyptian šwt”
Modern English
English
sheut
“The ancient Egyptian shadow-soul or shadow aspect of a person”